Automated and semi-automated machines have been employed for processing documents such as bulk mail. Due to the large quantity of mail received by many companies, there has long been a need for efficient sorting of incoming mail. Document sorting has become particularly important in the area of remittance processing.
Utility companies, phone companies, and credit card companies routinely receive thousands of payment envelopes from their customers on a daily basis. Typically, a customer payment envelope contains an invoice stub and some type of customer payment, usually in the form of a bank check or money order.
In order to perform remittance processing, the remittance transaction is initially extracted from the envelope. In some instances, the extraction may be done manually. In other instances, the extraction may be done in an automated manner. Regardless of the manner in which the remittance transactions are extracted, further processing of the invoices and accompanying checks is still required before remittance processing can be effected.
Remittance processing equipment typically requires each batch of remittance transactions to be organized so that each invoice-check pair is properly ordered and oriented. For example, conventional remittance processing equipment may require each transactional pair of documents to be ordered so that the invoice is positioned in front of or on top of each check. Furthermore, each invoice and each check must be oriented in a right-side-up, face-forward orientation. To determine the orientation of checks, magnetic imaging devices have been utilized to detect the location of the MICR line on the checks. Because the location of the MICR line is generally fixed, the magnetic imaging modules can determine the orientation of a check based on the location of the MICR line. However, documents such as invoices do not include a MICR line, and the printing on invoices varies widely among the different companies issuing invoices.
In accordance with the present invention, an apparatus and method are provided for detecting the orientation of documents based upon the detection of a POSTNET code printed on the documents and for thereafter reordering and reorienting the documents, as necessary, for subsequent remittance processing.